Faster than a fat kid to a doughnut
Bilden är från “Seilas tester hardcore seilmaskin” (tryck här).
A35:orna regerade i sin klass i Spi Ouest härom veckan. På SA diskuterade det en del kring dessa båtar och hur man fick fart på dem. Nedan kommer en kul beskrivning på hur det går till…
I don’t know much about the A-40, but I do know the A-35 quite well, I race on the A-35 Chenapan out of La Trinité sur Mer. The boat holds its rating when we don’t fuck up, and will sail well above it if we do everything perfect. We are esentially a stock boat, the IRC is standard rating, we have cushions, trim, a stove etc. We are still not up to speed though (far from it, especially in light air)
Batisyl, the winner of the Spi Ouest last year, and Garance Peinture, who won by a hair this year are both highly modified, nearly 300kg lighter and have gone to carbon sticks. Garance has completly re-rigged as well, getting rid of a lot of weight that way. (went to purchase main sheet vs. winches, changed the sheeting systems etc) Batistyl is also the program run by the guys from Sailingstyle, who sell A-35’s.
In the light, the boat does go, but it’s super tweaky, we are about 0.15-0.25 kts off the pace for the moment. You need to keep the boat flat until litterally 0 TWS, with lightweight genoas super deep and slack trimmed mains upwind. Downwind you really need an Assy on a pole until about 12 too keep the boat moving. Both upwind and downwind you have to get at least 3 crew in front of the mast, more if you’re skinny fuckers like me.
In the middle wind ranges, the boat goes like a bat out of hell, just trim the sails, stack your ass on the rail, weigh forward upwind, and center on the downwinds. Once again, sail choice is important.
In the bigger winds range (28+) upwind goes quite well, but wet. Downwind it’ll go faster than a fat kid to a doughnut, if you keep the mast right side up. You’ve allso got to get all the weight to the back of the bus, unless you like to swim.
The move to poles is because the prods don’t do well in IRC, and the speed is absolutly god aufull in light air with the prod (this is hear-say, we don’t have one) We do have a light, pole based assy. Batistyl has a 4th declaired kite, a heavy assy, which they use on reaching legs and seems to get them going good and scary fast once they get everyone hanging off the windward corner of the transom.
The build quality does not seem to be a problem, although the interior ressonates like a fucker, leading to some scary moments when you’ve got your head in a spin and some asshat bumps you trying to luff you into the rocks. (the noise was impressive, considering how little damage was done) It is built light, but light does not mean insufficient, or weak. I haven’t repaired any though, so I can’t attest to much more than that. There are several doing the Trans-quadra next year. The blocks and lines are not undersized, they are over spec’d though, we’ve yet to blow anything to hell, nor has Batistyl iirc and they did 45 000 miles on that boat last year, including the english races.